Send "Buddy Miller " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Popmatters |
 Buddy Miller is a Nashville-based country musician who transcends “country” so brilliantly that he makes genre distinctions wholly beside the point.As backing guitarist, singer, and producer for the likes of Emmylou Harris, Patty Griffin, Solomon Burke, Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams, and (his wife) Julie Miller, Buddy Miller is the world’s most sympathetic accompanist and arranger, genre be damned, a singing partner both gritty and elegant, with the guts and grit to make a beautiful singer tarnished just enough. As an artist on his own, Miller mixes gutsy roots-rock with country and folk and gospel such that the result is both brilliantly crafted and genuine. Buddy Miller shuffles or reconciles different styles like a post-modernist, but sounds utterly sincere and grounded. Which is another way of saying: Buddy Miller is a first-class musical alchemist. Lately, Buddy has seemed to be everywhere, mixing it up with various all-star groups that verify his incredible reputation: the Band of Joy (with Robert Plant and Patty Griffin), Three Girls and Their Buddy (with Shawn Colvin, Emmylou Harris, and Patty Griffin), and with Allison Kraus and Plant together. He recently recorded a new duet album with Julie (Written in Chalk) too. But all-star projects don’t come any more impressive—or, thankfully, strange and idiosyncratic—than The Majestic Silver Strings. Joining Miller on guitar are jazz wizard Bill Frisell, studio king Greg Leisz, and the angular downtown player Marc Ribot. The band mixes and matches styles with an easy fluidity. Traditional country music (including a bunch of classic tunes) forms the baseline from which the boys operate, but departure is the name of the game. “No Good Lover” is a ripping good blues built around a country-fried lick, with Miller sharing the vocal with gospel singer Ann McCrary. The tune reaches for the sky, however, as the guitarists trade solos at the end, loose and free. That’s a good explanation of the pattern of The Majestic Silver Strings: It sits squarely in tradition as it flies off from it....full text |
| Thehurstreview |
| There’s a sound that I love, used to introduce the second song on this album– it’s the sound of some frisky, playful guitar work, slowed down and then sped up in a way that makes it sound like the needle being dropped onto an old .45, eventually syncing up and, with a count-off, launching into a feisty take on the country chestnut “No Good Lover.” That’s the album in a nutshell: It’s pure guitar mastery from start to finish, but not in the way you might think. That Buddy Miller is an ace guitarist is not up for debate– he’s got no one less than Robert Plant to back up his shred cred– and the musicians he’s corralled into his Majestic Silver Strings troupe include jazz/blues stalwart Bill Friell, edgy Tom Waits/Joe Henry sideman Marc Ribot, and steel whiz Greg Leisz. These guys could put on a fireworks show for you if they wanted to. Much to my delight, however, they’d much rather put on a country music show. And actually, the thing really does have the feel of a country music revue. Buddy Miller is the ringleader; he takes the lead on the first few tracks before passing along vocal duties to a star-studded lineup of country music pros (and even Ribot, whose unpolished romanticism as a singer somehow seems perfectly in sync with his guitar playing, and is an album highlight). It’s like a good old-fashioned guitar pull. Miller gets the mic back to close things out, and– how’s this for a perfect showstopper?– he gets wife Julie to join him. It’s a celebration of great guitar playing, but much more than that it’s a celebration of country music. The songs here are mostly covers, and I think it’s fair to say that, while some of them might be familiar to you, none of them suffer from overexposure. (George Jones’ “Why Baby Why” is probably the best-known thing here.) There are lover’s laments and campfire sing-alongs; prison songs and jilted lover songs; songs of thick, syrupy sentiment and songs of unsettling gallows humor; songs for the honky tony and songs for lonesome nights on the prairie. Taken together, the material here doesn’t represent anything so formal as a history of country music, or even country guitar playing; it’s really just a love letter to the stuff, messy and heartfelt and brimming with personal quirks, humor, heartache, and general weirdness....full text |
| Jsonline |
| Can an artist be judged by the musical company he keeps? If so, then Buddy Miller can be judged well: shortly after overseeing Robert Plant's latest album, "Band of Joy," he gathered three extremely good guitarists - Bill Frisell, Marc Ribot and Greg Leisz - into his Majestic Silver Strings. Their self-titled album covers a bevy of country classics, throws down some original material and brings in quite a few impressive guests, including Emmylou Harris, Shawn Colvin and Buddy's wife, Julie. Throughout, the mood is amiably loose, dotted with false starts but not with sloppiness. Slinking low with Chocolate Genius through Roger Miller's "Dang Me," strutting and slapping over the George Jones hit "Why Baby Why" and twanging by moonlight for the Eddy Arnold favorite "Cattle Call," the Silver Strings achieve a kind of workingman's majesty. They make good company for the lonesome and weary. - Jon M. Gilbertson, Special to the Journal Sentinel Dropkick Murphys Goin Out in Style Born & Bred Records It takes just a few short bars of pounding drums and feverish chanting of "Hang 'Em High," the opening track of Dropkick Murphys' seventh album, for the Celtic rockers to hit their full frenetic stride. Across the album, the seven-piece Boston crew rarely lets up on the bawdy revelry. Following Irish storytelling traditions, this album loosely follows the tale of the late fictional Cornelius Larkin, whose life is lauded with bagpipes, whistles, accordions, guitars, barroom choruses and joyful shouts. In the shared vocals of Al Barr and Ken Casey, Larkin lewdly celebrates his own wake in "Going Out in Style" (which features assistance from NOFX's Fat Mike and comedian Lenny Clarke), reflects on his early life with the seaworthy dirge of "Cruel" and hails his labor pride in the foot-stomping "Take 'Em Down." Even Bruce Springsteen joins the party, trading impassioned vocals with Casey on a riffing rock cover of "Peg O' My Heart."...full text |
Buddy Miller lyrics
|
| ||||||||||
